Monday, April 14, 2008

Broken Mile

This morning I headed to the pool before class to put in a couple laps. I got there, got changed, grabbed a workout; you know the drill (or do now). Then, once again, coach stopped me and said thats not my workout today. Today I got to do her fabled "Broken Mile*"

The Broken Mile consists of 11 lengths, then 10, 9, 8, down to 1. Fifteen seconds rest between each of them; enough to take a short break but not really enough to catch your breathe.

I had never swam that far with that little rest, but I figured it was doable, so I went at it. I warmed up 100 yards (to make sure I swam a real mile today) then got going.

Thirty-three minutes and thirty seconds later I stopped. Then found out I get to subtract the rest off to predict my mile time and BAM!

31 minutes!

I won't be setting any records any time soon, but its a lot better than I (or she) expected. Afterwards I'm pretty sore. I had a few muscles cramp up afterwards and my right shoulder is hurting a little; although I'm still really hoping this is a good hurt, and not the bad hurt from a couple weeks ago.

It was a rewarding workout, and I plan to do it again in the future just to see how low I can go. Its approximately the distance I'll be racing in triathlons all summer too, so hopefully if I can get good at it in the pool I'll be ready to rock when races roll around!

* This is referring to a swimmers mile (1650 yards), not a real mile (1760 yards).

6 comments:

Dave - Atlanta Trails said...

congratulations! That's a solid swim workout.

Marcy said...

Best be calling up a lady friend to help out with those muscles, homie ;-) :P

Steve Stenzel said...

Nice workout!!

Beth said...

Hey - thanks for your comment on my blog! I was a runner turned triathlete too. I think you'll love triathlon (or perhaps you already do!). Anyway, best of luck with the training and racing! :)

Nibbles said...

Sounds like you totally owned a very brutal workout. Hats off to you!

Bill Carter said...

Hi Doug

Just getting caught up with the blog. Sorry to hear that for right now the running is MIA, but it sounds like you are making amazing progress with the swimming. It sounds like the biking is aok also, but that it is a little hard to trust that knee right now. I still believe that you just have to let it get better once and for all before you push it too much. Kind of what you said in your Thursday post.

Best of luck man and hang in there.